C-GFPL / FPL #E22 #22 / Bu# 86020

Early History

United States Navy. 1945 Grumman TBM-3S. Construction number 2839.

In 2003, Forest Protection Limited requested copies of Aircraft History Cards on seven former U.S. Navy Avenger aircraft currently in the FPL fleet from the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. Some of the cards were poorly microfilmed, and are presented below as received.

First USN aircraft history card for BuNo 86020, 1945 to 1948.

Second USN aircraft history card (new format) for BuNo 86020, showing that aircraft was stricken from records in 1950.

Royal Canadian Navy. Avenger AS 3. BOC: Oct. 5, 1950. SOC: April 22, 1958. Flew as #327 for Squadron VU 33.Donald A. Goodman, Missoula, MT – #63 N7157C 1963–1976. On 14 August 1967, was involved in an incident, summarized in the NTSB Report. There were no fatalities. Incident occurred at 16:34 hours. The damage was substantial. Incident occurred at the Coeur D Alene Airport, Coeur D’Alene, ID. The gear retracted during the landing rollout.

The middle article gives a brief account of the accident described above. Thanks to the ever resourceful Phil Schmidt for providing this. The article calls his TBM a “four-engine PBM.”

The story of Don Goodman is told on the U.S. Mountain States page, under Montana. Rick Leavell of Seattle, Washington, writes on Martin Simpson’s Douglas A/B-26 Invader page (HERE): He apparently flew a “TBM A22 (ACE DOUBLE DUCE).”

I have not been able to identify this TBM, but it certainly could be Don Goodman’s #A22. This image was labelled November 1966. [Now, see below.]

“In the photo posted [above] there was no registration visible, [so I] hope this clears [the mystery] up a bit. N7157C at Missoula on the 11 June 1967, JA Morrow slide from my collection.” [Posted by Rob Tracz to TBM’s – Mil & Civil on 7 Sep 2015.]

Fire Suppression – NB1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 – Pilot McKinnon. Accident: GFPL #22 sustained damage during a training flight on 14 June 2000 when a new pilot, R. Clowes, forgot to select gear down when landing. It did not sustain any major damage. Rather than changing the engine on GFPL, it was decided to activate the spare, #21 GFPM.

Crashed 23 April 2010 at the Miramichi Airbase; pilot Ron Clowes was killed and the aircraft was completely destroyed. See the Transportation Safety Board of Canada’s accident report A10A0041.

N.B. water bomber crash kills pilot

[reprinted from CBC News (online), Friday April 23, 2010.]

The pilot of a water bomber died in a crash near Miramichi, N.B., on Friday. The water bomber, operated by Forest Protection Ltd., crashed shortly after taking off from Miramichi Airport just before 2 p.m. AT, according to a company spokesman. Miramichi police deputy chief Paul Fiander confirmed the pilot, Ron Clowes, died in the crash. He was a 62-year-old experienced pilot from Grand Falls, N.B., with more than 13,000 hours of flying time, said police Sgt. Brian Cumming. He had worked for Forest Protection for 10 years. A witness told a CBC reporter the plane took off and did a small tour around the area before it seemed to stall and start to go down. The witness said it looked as if he pointed the plane to ensure it would miss workers at a nearby peat moss plant when it went down. Company managing director David Davies told The Canadian Press only the pilot was on board the TBM Avenger aircraft. It was conducting a practice flight at the time of the crash. Transportation Safety Board of Canada investigators were on their way from Halifax and will begin their investigation Saturday morning. Forest Protection is owned by the province and several companies involved in the forestry industry, including J.D. Irving, Fraser Papers, Weyerhaeuser, Acadian Timber and others, according to the company website. Since 1952, the company has provided forest protection services ranging from fire and pest management to aerial surveys.

“The engine of the downed Forest Protection Limited aircraft sits several metres away from the crash site.” Photo by Kris McDavid, Moncton Times and Transcript.

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2 responses to “C-GFPL / FPL #E22 #22 / Bu# 86020”

Hello if you get this, I knew your father in 1973 he and the TBM were at Flathead County Airport for that season, I was learning to fly with Jack Archibald and he did work on Don’s TBM, I remember helping change the carburetor gasket as it had backfired on start up once that day and blew a piece out, took us all night.

My father was Donald A. Goodman. I did not know him very well as my parents divorced when I was 5 years old in 1963.
I did not see my father again. My mother relocated us out of Missoula, Montana to the Oregon area. There was very little communication after that.

At 16 years old I was notified that my father was killed in a plane crash in Parachute, Colorado on July 16, 1976. He was called to help with a forest fire on the mountain to drop fire retardant and somehow lost control of the plane(?). I went to his services in McCall, Idaho and met some family on the Goodman side. I loved the area and the people there.

My father did fly a TBM when dropping retard on forest fires. I am not sure if that was what he flying at the time. Did anyone out there know my father? I see that he is listed on the top of the register. I would love to see some articles about Don Goodman.